AU6314899A

AU6314899A - Protective clothing improvements

Info

Publication number: AU6314899A
Application number: AU63148/99A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Grant Charles Mackintosh
Original assignee: Becon Pty Ltd
Current assignee: Becon Pty Ltd
Priority date: 1998-12-03
Filing date: 1999-12-03
Publication date: 2000-06-08
Anticipated expiration: 2019-12-03
Also published as: AU769691B2

Description

49705 P/00/011 Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT

ORIGINAL

*Name of Applicant: *BECON PTY LTD Actual Inventor(s): GRANT CHARLES MACKINTOSH Address for Service: COLLISON CO.,117 King William Street, Adelaide, S.A. 5000 Invention Title: PROTECTIVE CLOTHING IMPROVEMENTS Details of Associated Provisional Application: Australian Patent Application No. PP7495 Dated 3rd December 1998 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: This invention relates to protective clothing and in particular to clothing of a type used by motorcyclists.

It is conventional for motorcyclists to wear leather clothing.

Leather is good for abrasion resistance and for protection of the rider from the wind.

Clothing made from leather however is often not appropriate from a fashion point of view or considered appropriate in some instances where a different style of clothing might be considered more appropriate.

Also, leather clothing is not always appropriate for use in many social 1 0 environments, so that the motorcyclist has to consider having a change of clothing from when riding the motorcycle to when attending the social function.

It has been known to use protective shields in the manner for instance of S.leggings which are either supported externally to the clothing or are secured to an external surface of the clothing.

15 The problem with this arrangement is again the problem that the clothing still takes the appearance of clothing intended for motorbike riding and not for attendance at social functions.

Such external shields can however be made from materials such as polycarbonate which will provide excellent abrasion protection, but the difficulty is that they must also be comfortable to use and from a commercial point of view, shapes must be found that are appropriate for at least a reasonable range of different sizes of people who might use these.

There is a current market for this type of protection, but it still has these difficulties.

An object of this invention is to provide the public with a useful alternative to existing clothing which will be better acceptable in a fashion sense to motorcyclists and those involved in similar activities and yet still provide good protection.

In one form of this invention, there is proposed an article of clothing for use by a motorcyclist or others wherein there is attached on the inside surface of the clothing, a knitted or woven material which is comprised of a material that is highly abrasive resistant.

By attaching the material on the inside of the clothing, this removes the difficulty associated with the appearance of the clothing because the protection itself is inside and not outside of the clothing itself and therefore generally invisible to the casual observer.

By having the material comprised of interlaced, either by way of weaving or 1 0 knitting, strands of highly abrasive resistant material, means that the advantage of the protection at least from abrasion is available and yet the material itself is much more likely to conform easily to the shape appropriate for the user during various modes of use.

One of the problems associated with locating such interleaved strands of 1 5 material on the inside of clothing, is that in the event of an accident where the clothing is being dragged across an abrasive surface, then the difficulty is that such action is likely to develop substantial frictional heat which in turn will either degrade the protective properties of the abrasive resistant material or at least add to the severe discomfort of the wearer.

2 0 In preference then, the interlaced material is interlaced and shaped so as to leave a surface in which there are provided channels that will extend across the material so as to provide for substantial air access to the abrasive resistant material strands.

In preference, the strands have been chosen to be appropriate to be formed together in an interlaced pattern by knitting.

In preference, the knitting is chosen so as to provide for ridges that extend along the length of the material and which will project inwardly when the material is secured to an innerside of the clothing.

In experiments conducted so far, this has resulted in significant improvement 3 0 in providing both comfort, adequate protection from abrasion in the case of an accident, and an appearance that is more suitable for wear other than when riding the vehicle.

A next aspect relates to the use of such woven, highly abrasive resistant strand based material.

Hitherto, the location of protective shielding has been chosen from the point of view of minimising damage to the clothing itself, firstly because it has been located externally from the clothing, and secondly, hard sheets of material are unpleasant to wear at the best of times, so that one would not wish to extend its use unnecessarily.

By discovering a material that can be used on the inside of clothing, and 1 0 further can be comfortably worn, the focus can turn not so much to protection of clothing, but to protection of the user of the clothing.

In preference then, in accordance with this invention, there is provided placement of the substantial abrasion resistant material at locations which are chosen to provide protection for the rider in the event of most situations where 1 5 the rider will be caused to be sliding along the ground.

*eo 9 In preference then, there is provided for a pair of trousers an inner protective abrasion resistant panel which extends across a knee area and then up the side of the clothing to the thigh area and then around the bottom area to then return down the side of the other leg to the portion extending around the knee.

9. 20 This then provides for abrasion resistant protection in the event that the rider is going to slide on his or her bottom, be caused to slide on one or other side or be caused to slide on the face insofar that the knees project and are appropriately protected.

In accordance with a further form of the invention as applied to a jacket, there is provided of the highly abrasion resistant material, a full length sleeve for each arm and a portion extending from the back over the shoulders to the breast.

In this way, the arms which are most vulnerable are protected very adequately and the more forward projecting portions of the body, as compared to the 3 0 bottom and legs, are then protected by the material extending up the back, across the shoulders and then down to the breast in each case.

In preference, the material is divided at the front to assist in comfort.

For a better understanding of this invention it will now be described with the assistance of drawings.

Figure 1 is a perspective view of an arrangement in accord with an embodiment of the invention showing both a jacket and trousers.

Figure 2 is an enlarged view in perspective of the shape of the knitted fabric from the material chosen to be this highly resistant but having good aeration.

1 0 Figure 3 is a view from the end of the fabric.

Referring in detail to the drawings, and in particular to Figure 1, this depicts two pieces of clothing according to the present invention, namely trousers and a jacket 20 of conventional attire. In the embodiment however, the external fabric is denim.

15 The trousers 10 include panels of a friction resistant material 12 affixed in this case as one piece to the inner face of the material from which the trousers are formed.

This material is comprised of knitted strands of highly abrasive resistant material.

The panel 12 is comprised of three functional parts, a first being a panel across the knees at 13, a panel which extends from the knee area to the thigh area at 14 and a panel that extends around the bottom at In this way then, the substantial abrasive resistant material is located at parts conventionally covered by trousers which would be most vulnerable to abrasion in the event of an accident.

The feet would be normally protected by ordinary footwear or boots and would project sufficiently so that it would either be the side at 14 or the knee panel at 13 that would then be the next most prominent portion of the body of the wearer.

However of course, the bottom is also conventionally vulnerable and in the way shown, this provides excellent protection for this area as well.

Now dealing with the jacket, the substantially abrasion resistant material is in the form of a full sleeve 20 and there is then a panel 21 that extends from across the back at 22 to extend over the shoulders at 23 to extend down to the approximate location at 24 of the breast of the wearer and preferably just past the breast so that this conventionally most protuberant portion of the chest is also protected adequately.

S:Strands 25 have been formed together in an interlaced pattern 28 with ridges 25 extending along the material that project inwardly 27 where the material is **secured to an innerside of the clothing.

S"

The interlaced pattern 28 of the abrasive resistant material provides channels S1 5 29 that extend across the material so as to provide for substantial air access to the abrasive resistant material strands.

The material is secured in an appropriate way by appropriate stitching to the 5I inside surface of the fabric providing the clothing.

Now referring to the abrasion resistant material, it has been found that there 20 are materials which can be formed into threads sufficiently fine so that they can be formed together to form multiple strands in the manner of materials such as wool but which none the less exhibit this very high abrasion resistance.

One such material is known by its trade mark "KEVLAR" and a material has been knitted from this in the forms shown in Figures 2 and 3 and forms the panels described in figure 1.

In a further form, the material chosen has included "KEVLAR" but has in addition included other materials to assist in other characteristics, firstly to provide for resilience and a feeling of softness when being worn and such a material is known under a trade mark "KEPROTEC".

Such a material is formed by a mixture of materials known under their respective trade marks of "KEVLAR", "LYCRA" and "NYLON".

This abrasion resistant material is knitted with an open weave which thereby creates a porous assembly that also provides ridges and gullies along the length of the material to assist in ensuring that there is adequate air in the vicinity of any strand and therefore assists in keeping this cool in the extreme circumstances of providing substantial abrasion resistance.

.9 0

Claims

1. An article of clothing for use by a motorcyclist or others wherein there is attached on the inside surface of the clothing, a knitted or woven material which is comprised of a material that is highly abrasive resistant.

2. An article of clothing as in claim 1 further characterised in that the material is comprised of interlaced, either by way of weaving or knitting, strands of highly abrasive resistant material.

3. An article of clothing as in claim 2 further characterised in that the interlaced material is interlaced and shaped so as to leave a surface in which 1 0 there are provided channels that will extend across the material so as to provide for substantial air access to the abrasive resistant material strands. S S. S4. An article of clothing as in claim 3 further characterised in that the strands have been formed together in an interlaced pattern by knitting. An article of clothing as in any one of claims 2,3 or 4 further characterised in that where the material is interlaced by knitting a pattern of knitting is chosen so as to provide for ridges that extend along the length of the material and which will project inwardly from where the material is secured to an innerside of the clothing.

6. An article of clothing as in claim 1 further characterised in that the substantial abrasion resistant material at locations which are chosen to provide protection for the rider in the event of most situations where the rider will be caused to be sliding along the ground.

7. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims further characterised in that the article of clothing is a pair of trousers with an inner protective abrasion resistant panel which extends across a knee area and then up the side of the clothing to a thigh area and then around a bottom area to then return down the side of the other leg to the portion extending around the knee area.

8. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 6 further characterised in that the article of clothing is a jacket with a full length sleeve of a knitted or woven material which is comprised of a material that is highly abrasive resistant.

9. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 6 further characterised in that the article of clothing is a jacket is for each arm and a portion extending from the back over the shoulders to the breast. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 9 further characterised in that the arms which are most vulnerable are protected very adequately and the more forward projecting portions of the body, as 1 0 compared to the bottom and legs, are then protected by the material extending 0. 0 up the back, across the shoulders and then down to the breast in each case.

11. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through further characterised in that the knitted or woven abrasion resistant material is formed so that it is divided at a front of the garment to assist in comfort.

12. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 11 further characterised in that article of clothing has as its external fabric, denim.

13. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 12 ll where the article of clothing is a pair of trousers, further characterised in that a panel is comprised of three functional parts, a first being a panel across each of a knees area, a panel which extends from the knee area to the thigh area and a panel that extends around the bottom.

14. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 13 further characterised in that the material chosen includes "KEVLAR" and in addition includes other materials to assist in other characteristics, firstly to provide for resilience and a feeling of softness when being worn. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 14 further characterised in that the material chosen includes a material is known under a trade mark "KEPROTEC".

16. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 13 further characterised in that the material chosen is formed by a mixture of materials known under their respective trade marks of "KEVLAR", "LYCRA" and "NYLON".

17. An article of clothing as in any one of the preceding claims 1 through 13 further characterised in that the abrasion resistant material is knitted with an open weave whereby to create a porous assembly that also provides ridges and gullies along a length of the material to assist in ensuring that there is adequate air in the vicinity of any strand and therefore assists in keeping this 1 0 cool in the extreme circumstances of providing substantial abrasion resistance.

18. An article of clothing substantially as described in the specification with reference to and as illustrated by any one or more of the accompanying drawings. Dated this 3rd day of December 1999 BECON PTY LTD By their Patent Attorneys, COLLISON CO. S *i 9